In a matter of weeks, Kentucky's Cyber Crimes Unit has made an impressive 11 arrests. The unit, utilizing four investigators, uses cellphone apps, social media and chat rooms to target and eventually arrest child predators.

Investigator Tom Bell said of the work, "There's plenty of times when you'll have to get up and walk away, walk down the hall. Go get you a pop or something and just take a minute to decompress."

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But the payoffs are the arrests. The unit has made 148 arrests since it began in 2008. Most recently, Patrick Small, 22, was arrested Friday in Shelbyville. Investigators say he believed he was meeting an underage girl for sex and drugs and brought along his 4-year-old for the meeting. Small is one of the 11 arrests made since Attorney General Andy Beshear took office and began working more closely with the Cyber Crimes Unit. On Tuesday he said the unit must remain a priority.

"We are on a pace to remove more of these child sex offenders from the street than we've ever seen. Right now, it looks like we're going to triple the numbers done over the last two years and really it's only the budget that constrains us," Beshear said.

In fact, under the budget Gov. Matt Bevin introduced last month, Beshear says his office - which oversees the unit - would see a 4.5 percent cut by June 30, followed by 9 percent cuts each additional year. In last month's State of the Commonwealth address, Bevin pledged not to cut the budgets of law enforcement or prosecutors. But, according to Beshear, his office was not exempted. Still, the budget has not yet been passed.

"I'm out fighting every single day to keep this going. I'm committed to better protecting our kids. I'm committed to removing these pedophiles from our streets and I'm not going to let one budget proposal hold me back," Beshear said.

It means, Bell and others will continue their work on cellphones and at computers, knowing every message is one step closer to an arrest.

"If weren't that buffer between the child and the predator then he could be doing that to a real child instead of an undercover office so it's very rewarding to us," Bell said.

During his tenure, Beshear has dedicated himself to focusing on crimes against children. He is supporting House Bill 109, which allows children and vulnerable adults to testify about patterns of abuse without being penalized for not remembering exact dates and places where the abuse occurred. Last week, Beshear and First Lady Glenna Bevin announced a new training program aimed at preventing child abuse.

The father of two young children, Beshear says his agenda is personal, "There is an ocean of child sex predators out there and I can tell you as long as I'm in office we're going to wake up every single day, we're going to wade through that ocean and catch as many of them as we possibly can."